Benvolio. Nay, he will answer the letter's master, how he
dares, being dared.
1170

Mercutio. Alas poor Romeo! he is already dead; stabbed with a
white wench's black eye; shot through the ear with a
love-song; the very pin of his heart cleft with the
blind bow-boy's butt-shaft: and is he a man to
encounter Tybalt?
1175

Mercutio. More than prince of cats, I can tell you. O, he is
the courageous captain of compliments. He fights as
you sing prick-song, keeps time, distance, and
proportion; rests me his minim rest, one, two, and
1180the third in your bosom: the very butcher of a silk
button, a duellist, a duellist; a gentleman of the
very first house, of the first and second cause:
ah, the immortal passado! the punto reverso! the
hai!
1185

Mercutio. The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting
fantasticoes; these new tuners of accents! 'By Jesu,
a very good blade! a very tall man! a very good
whore!' Why, is not this a lamentable thing,
1190grandsire, that we should be thus afflicted with
these strange flies, these fashion-mongers, these
perdona-mi's, who stand so much on the new form,
that they cannot at ease on the old bench? O, their
bones, their bones!
1195

Mercutio. Without his roe, like a dried herring: flesh, flesh,
how art thou fishified! Now is he for the numbers
that Petrarch flowed in: Laura to his lady was but a
1200kitchen-wench; marry, she had a better love to
be-rhyme her; Dido a dowdy; Cleopatra a gipsy;
Helen and Hero hildings and harlots; Thisbe a grey
eye or so, but not to the purpose. Signior
Romeo, bon jour! there's a French salutation
1205to your French slop. You gave us the counterfeit
fairly last night.

Mercutio. Nay, if thy wits run the wild-goose chase, I have
done, for thou hast more of the wild-goose in one of
thy wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole five:
1230was I with you there for the goose?

Romeo. Thou wast never with me for any thing when thou wast
not there for the goose.

Mercutio. O here's a wit of cheveril, that stretches from an
inch narrow to an ell broad!
1240

Romeo. I stretch it out for that word 'broad;' which added
to the goose, proves thee far and wide a broad goose.

Mercutio. Why, is not this better now than groaning for love?
now art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo; now art
thou what thou art, by art as well as by nature:
1245for this drivelling love is like a great natural,
that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole.

Mercutio. No hare, sir; unless a hare, sir, in a lenten pie,
1285that is something stale and hoar ere it be spent.
[Sings]An old hare hoar,
And an old hare hoar,
Is very good meat in lent
1290But a hare that is hoar
Is too much for a score,
When it hoars ere it be spent.
Romeo, will you come to your father's? we'll
to dinner, thither.
1295

Nurse. Marry, farewell! I pray you, sir, what saucy
merchant was this, that was so full of his ropery?

Romeo. A gentleman, nurse, that loves to hear himself talk,
and will speak more in a minute than he will stand
to in a month.
1305

Nurse. An a' speak any thing against me, I'll take him
down, an a' were lustier than he is, and twenty such
Jacks; and if I cannot, I'll find those that shall.
Scurvy knave! I am none of his flirt-gills; I am
none of his skains-mates. And thou must stand by
1310too, and suffer every knave to use me at his pleasure?

Peter. I saw no man use you a pleasure; if I had, my weapon
should quickly have been out, I warrant you: I dare
draw as soon as another man, if I see occasion in a
good quarrel, and the law on my side.
1315

Nurse. Now, afore God, I am so vexed, that every part about
me quivers. Scurvy knave! Pray you, sir, a word:
and as I told you, my young lady bade me inquire you
out; what she bade me say, I will keep to myself:
but first let me tell ye, if ye should lead her into
1320a fool's paradise, as they say, it were a very gross
kind of behavior, as they say: for the gentlewoman
is young; and, therefore, if you should deal double
with her, truly it were an ill thing to be offered
to any gentlewoman, and very weak dealing.
1325

Romeo. And stay, good nurse, behind the abbey wall:
1340Within this hour my man shall be with thee
And bring thee cords made like a tackled stair;
Which to the high top-gallant of my joy
Must be my convoy in the secret night.
Farewell; be trusty, and I'll quit thy pains:
1345Farewell; commend me to thy mistress.

Nurse. Well, sir; my mistress is the sweetest lady—Lord,
Lord! when 'twas a little prating thing:—O, there
is a nobleman in town, one Paris, that would fain
lay knife aboard; but she, good soul, had as lief
1355see a toad, a very toad, as see him. I anger her
sometimes and tell her that Paris is the properer
man; but, I'll warrant you, when I say so, she looks
as pale as any clout in the versal world. Doth not
rosemary and Romeo begin both with a letter?
1360

Nurse. Ah. mocker! that's the dog's name; R is for
the—No; I know it begins with some other
letter:—and she hath the prettiest sententious of
it, of you and rosemary, that it would do you good
1365to hear it.